Tel Aviv/Hamburg - World-famous Israeli author Amos Oz and other Israeli intellectuals and dovish politicians have announced the establishment of a new political party that aims to unite the Israeli peace camp.

The Israel Labour Party, the traditional choice of Israeli peace supporters, has reached the end of its historic mission, Oz said in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit to be published Thursday.

Therefore, a new social-democratic party would formally be established on December 6, he said.

Tel Aviv - An explosion ripped through a car in North Tel Aviv Monday morning, killing an alleged underworld kingpin, and lightly wounding two bystanders, Israeli media said.

Police would not confirm the identity of the fatality, who media reports said was Yakov Alperon, the head of one of Israel's reputed largest crime families.

Nor were police prepared to say that the blast was the result of a bomb planted in the rented car in which Alperon was.

Gaza/Tel Aviv - A truce between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip which has largely held for more than five months was increasingly unravelling Friday, as Gaza gunmen launched another round of rockets into southern Israel.

Israel responded with an air strike on a group of militants in northern Gaza, who had just fired one of the missiles into Israel, an army spokesman in Tel Aviv said.

Four members of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the radical Islamic Jihad movement, were injured, two of them moderately.

Tel Aviv - Israeli caretaker prime minister Ehud Olmert wants to start direct negotiations with Syria by January, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

Olmert wants to upgrade the talks despite internal criticism by members of both the opposition and coalition, who say he lacks the legitimacy to negotiate during his final months in office.

The Israeli leader resigned in September to fight corruption allegations and heads a transitional cabinet, which will be in power until a new government is formed after February 10.

Tel Aviv  - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has approved dozens of construction projects in the occupied West Bank over the past months, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

The vast majority of the projects listed by Ha'aretz are in Jewish settlement blocks which Israel has vowed to keep as part of a future peace deal with the Palestinians.

But some are in isolated settlements located to the east of Israel's West Bank security barrier.

Tel Aviv, Nov. 12 : Israeli leaders Tzipi Livni and Benjamin Netanyahu are competing to cast themselves as Obama-like champions of change, clean government and bipartisanship in their respective bids to win general elections.